


Rooting Pains

by CravenWyvern



Series: DS Extras [74]
Category: Don't Starve (Video Game)
Genre: Hanahaki Disease, Technically Maxwell/Them, headcanons galore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-24
Updated: 2020-08-24
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:22:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,727
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26083390
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CravenWyvern/pseuds/CravenWyvern
Series: DS Extras [74]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/688443
Comments: 1
Kudos: 13





	Rooting Pains

It was the thorns that got him, out on his own. Some of these spawned worlds were empty, floral portals encased in decaying vines and crumbled ruins that he passed by every now and again, reminders of how cut off this plane of existence was in the grand scheme of things.

Maxwell did not let himself question it, of whether this was the Queen's work or perhaps an unnecessary coincidence, late nights sitting by the fire, waiting for the dawn to arrive, spent in the heavy silence of solitude.

These variations of the Constant were cut off, a lone existence spinning slow and wide through the void, and there was no one here besides himself. Nothing but pig villages and rabbit warrens and walrus' clans, and the Former King would find himself walking the world in much the same way he used to, back before the Queen's new reign, back when he had only just so recently been dethroned. 

With the know how of much more companionable living, Maxwell found this lonesome world quite lacking. He must have been getting soft, surrounded by the other survivors, getting used to bustling campsites and heady dinner conversations and the spouting arguments and debates that rose back and forth between the lot of them, listening or even butting in himself to speak his own thoughts and be involved with the racket of it all. Such chaos was at odds to the silence he heard now, the wind through the trees untainted by far away wood cutting, bustling crockpots or beefalo herding shenanigans. Even the act of attempting gardening seemed...lesser, paled in comparison to how he used to spend sunlight hours helping Wendy transplant certain plants, aid Webber in planting long rows of fertilized earth with mismatched seeds, even the odd, once in a blue moon times when he'd accompany Wx78 out to their own fields and show the android far better, more efficient ways of gathering the nightmare fuels from their dark flower gardens. 

Now, now Maxwell had his aching knees in the dusty earth, plants wilting under his lackluster care, and his stomach went without most days.

Now his own campsite was lopsided, unaided by more experienced, confident hands, and now when the baying of the hounds arose he had little option but to run for what could almost not be called safety; the beefalo, even when aiding him in a fight, were more than likely to step and crush and buck him aside, break bone and thrash in friendly fire, and the swamps with the hulking merms were getting too smart, eyeing his arrival and the wolves howls as evidence of him using them as cover. 

Even retreating to the caves was becoming less and less worthwhile; the tunneling worms, following the hounds echoing calls, waited for him below.

In these empty, ruined portaless worlds, Maxwell was alone. 

And there was little else but to call for the shadows aid.

They would come, as They always did, rising from his own shadow or spilling from the Codex's shade infused pages, twisted and dark with the sludge oils, simple things that obeyed his every command, as long as he had a firm grasp upon his own mind.

Otherwise they became unruly, wandering, and Maxwell found Mr. Skitts most often hovering by Their sides, nipping and gnawing and herding the day quicker into whatever future motive They aimed for. At this point, he couldn't even take a guess on whether They wished for his death or not.

The terror beaks followed and stuck close at his back, ribbed smokey mouths opening and closing, opening and closing, gaping fishlike and yet skittering like the spiders, long legged harvesters scuttling away from the seeing eye and rising torch light that swung around to deter Their approach. Crawling horrors were much slower, great sluggish ticks that cooed and crawled Their way ever closer, fat things that tried to sneak up on him in the darkest of nights, and no matter what he found himself slashing a nightmare fuel laden sword through Maxwell's doppelgangers did not ever raise a hand to his aid, not even once. They had a kinsmanship with his stalkers, with the shadow watchers that crowded the campfire light in deep, long nights empty of the moon, abided the shadow hands that crawled and dragged through yellowing grasses just to snuff a flame out, just to feel heat and warmth and brightness for that one crucial moment before cold death swept in, and never once did Maxwell find his own clones any help when in a fight with the seeking hungers of Them and Their ilk.

Fighting had never been Their strong suite, he supposed in the end. They copied his form, acute mimicry, and even a nightmare sword could hold no weight to something as hungry as a starvingly rapid ruin's born crawling horror. 

Maxwell found himself avoiding the caves when surviving an empty Constant on his own, especially when his clones were active and dogging his heels. The thick stench of spiced oily fuels made Them act out, pull further from his control, splinter apart his holding mind and wrangle a feverish sickness to spike within him in Their stead. It was better, to keep the clones fully tethered upon the surface.

As it stood, the silent isolation of this empty plane of the Constant made Their summonings occur far more often, and for much, much longer.

No one but the Queen and her silent entourage of shadows ever watched Maxwell in these exiled lands, and only They ever knew the deep grave of solitude entrenched in nightmare fuel could do to a mind. If there was ever more than three clones, if they were ever so much more close and personal, if they crowded and leaned and clung to his every step so much more than he'd be seen with when survivors were around, it was not something Maxwell would ever speak of to the others. It was none of the Constants pawns business, what he found comfort in with his own loneliness. 

The downsides were always so very heavy however, so very much so.

The shadows curled about his tent, dogged and trailed and tripped up his steps at every turn as days would progress and Maxwell attempted to live in a stagnant world converging with shadows and little else, alone in the universe he himself had designed, pieced together in the vivid fever dreams the Throne had gifted him, once upon a time. The longer he survived on his own, unbothered by human contact and given the cold shoulder by the ever busy Queen, the more and more the former King of the Constant found himself turning to the shadows for humanities comforts.

It was what he had done in the beginning, after all. William had found Their attentions to be something he so greatly sought after, and even now Maxwell found himself easing his lifestyle into Their wants, Their wishes, Their...entertainment. 

What else to do with oneself, besides pander to those who had once given him a kingdom? They gave no blessings now, no gifts, and yet these empty Constant planes held no end goal, no life to live otherwise.

Not unless he took a leaf from the other survivors books, took to the pig villages for attention or attempted to beg to the Queen for purpose, and Maxwell found himself treading the edges of such decisions more than a few times, alone and fighting to survive for a life that would lead up to and end with nothing at all. 

But the shadows whispered and cooed and promised Their slick little promises, and Maxwell found himself sneering at the half remembered choices he's seen the other pawns once choose, so long ago now and so far from the Thrones clinging grasp, and there was no hesitance in reaching for the shadowy hands offered to him and taking Them as his set purpose.

They've led him to his death, a few odd times, cackling and giggling and laying shadowy hands upon the remains of broken and beaten body, hushing his gurgled coughs and easing whatever would remain from that life out of the pain and suffering into another portal, another Constant, another lifetime he'd inevitably grow to hate. Sometimes They'd even hand him over to another lost, maddened survivor; They so favored Their live action dramas that this, too, oftentimes lead to a spear through the belly or knife to the back, razor in the throat or rope about the neck and slow, so very slow death of strangling. Maxwell has, over the infinite lifespan the Constant tortured and thrived upon with its survivors, grown used to such situations.

Unfortunately, while death became a norm pain and suffering of so many varying degrees was so much harder to grow accustomed to. The shadows and Their delights will never find an end, that he was sure of.

When not leading him to his coming death Maxwell found the company of Them and Their shadows lackluster, weak and pale beyond words to tried true humanity. But, as he's found time and again, such companionship was more often than not barred to him, or at the very least so much a major discomfort and nerve wracking that he'd choose the far less favorable option just to escape such awkwardness. The worlds where he was surviving with others arose a grand slew of problems he found so much harder to work through, and even like this, surrounded by humming, whispering shadows and Their entrancing bleach white eyes, all watching him, all feeding off him and leeching the very life and essence of himself for Their own fruitless immortal expanses of existence, Maxwell vaguely understood which he'd prefer.

Then again, it was hard to think of such things when one's mind was clouded in shadow influence and presence, pounding with an ache that crawled and picked and peeled through the very insides of his skull, already settled and slathered in thick oils to the base flesh of his mind and sense of self. In the world empty of living mortals, Maxwell knew quite well that he was the farthest from human that he could get without the Thrones help, and that They oh so adored him for it.

But, not enough, he knew, not nearly enough.

Wordless mornings rose with the sound of his creaking, hacking coughs, too much infused nightmare oils and then, even worse off, the Queens influence and the Constants ever so kindly gift of thorns and vines and roots and leaves and petals, full blooms.

Slimy blackened flowers, slick with the fuel and his blood and his very flesh, curled spines and spikes that cut through his throat and bled his tongue, suffocating on Their whispered blessings and amused laughter as he'd choke and gag it out of him as best as he could. It was the mornings that were the worst, sleepless with insomnia bleeding through, letting the shadows drag Their hold in far thicker and deeper, and Maxwell could do nothing under Their watchfulness but hope he'd survive through it for another day.

The flowers steamed with nightmare fuel, thick and seeping into his taste buds just as much as his own foul blood, and yet the darkened root system rose under the thin skin of his body, traced the old bound lines of wrists and ankles and chest and throat, blackened scrawled veins that had his pond reflection mirror back to him a thin, ghoulish ghastly image of a man, incomparable to the Nightmare King who had once ruled these lands with an iron, taloned fist. The shadows, sadistically cruel as They were, allowed him longer life when the flowers entrenched themselves into his body, grew from his flesh and ate up every drop of foul blood, encasing every beating organ and threading through the veins of his living form, the pulse of his life corrupted by rooting infestation and floral parasitism.

Maxwell was fairly sure They found this to be the most amusing of his deaths; his own mortality, the very last of it, tainted and killing itself in the froth of a fairy tale human disease. 

Perhaps They found it more than amusing; some nights, while Maxwell heaved and coughed and curled in on himself as he gagged out slimy blackened petals and blood splattered, flesh entangled root systems, the shadows grew, crawled and swept and then cradled him close, humming that dreadful beat They adored so very much, and the shadow clones would huddle in and press Themselves ever closer to him, as if to provide the comforts They so much enjoyed in taking away and destroying.

It made the sickness worsen, blindly grasping for something, _anything_ to hold in a vain bid for comfort and relief from the encompassing pain of flowering dark plants rooting, beating with his very pulse of life throughout his frail body, and finding his hands clasped and held tight by the very shadows that laughed and giggled and watched his struggles with so much acute focus that one could even call it _enthrallment._

If it had been tried true, then Maxwell knew the flowers would go away, dry up and die within his system, give him the peace and relief he so desperately craved, so silently, desperately begged Them for.

But he, as well as They, knew quite well that in these empty lonesome worlds, only him and Them to wander its desolate, purposeless expanse, there was no relief to be ever found. They enjoyed his suffering all too much, yes, cruel and whispering and cooing as They'd run shadowed oily claws over his head and press, prod and knead against his bony shoulders, cradle Their once so admired King to Their shadowy unknowable shade forms. 

His hands would blindly reach for Them, as he had in the world Before the Constant, as he had upon the very Throne, aching and pleading, begging for Their attentions, and no matter Maxwell's love for Them the shadows that inhabited this suffering of tortuous existence held no love for him back.

Eventually this all too human affliction would get the best of him; dying in the arms of the shadows, listening to Their hummed songs and wordless voices, choking to death on thorns and entangled evil plant vines, blood and vile nightmare oils pouring from his lips, the broken skin where slimy spined flowers had burst from his wrists and ankles and ribcage and soft, wrinkled throat, entangled in a plant that emulated the very essence of the Throne in of itself-

-the shadows would sing, terror beaks and crawling horrors huddled all around, watchers holding all too close, doppelgangers still splintering of his own minds shards crowded at his sides and holding, entwining dark fuel created talons with his own limp hands, Mr. Skitts curled lazily upon his blood and fuel soaked suit jacket, soaking in his last strained breaths as the plants bled the life out of him.

For a brief, oh so brief second in the last lucid moments of his mind, Maxwell could almost swear that They oh so _loved_ him, too.

When he would next awaken, revived and body clean of nightmarish plants rooted to his very inner core, it would be to a thriving, living Florid Postern behind him, the fading seeping magics of its dark inner workings fading as he took his next, root free breath. The Constant would provide a much more inhabited existence, let him mingle with the survivors again, learn to become human once more.

The shadows, soft and quiet and well fed, would leave him to it, away from Their influence for a little while longer.

Eventually, as the Constant and its infinite spinning cycle of unlife and undeath played, eventually it would set the stage once again.

He knew, just as well as They, that Maxwell would find himself crawling back to Them again soon enough. 

And They knew, just as well as he, that They would curl Their shadows in cruel welcome and cradle Their once beloved King close all the same, cooing and singing and almost, so very close to almost _loving_ him as Maxwell felt for Them.

He would die, as every pawn did within the Constant, over and over and over, and They _loved_ that, so, so very much.


End file.
